Bishop arrested over fatal hit and run

June 17 2003

A Catholic bishop accused of covering up sexual abuse by US priests was arrested today on a hit-run charge. He had sped off after running over and killing a pedestrian, police said.

Police arrested Bishop Thomas O'Brien, the church's spiritual leader in Phoenix, Arizona, after a partial registration number provided by a witness to Saturday's deadly accident led detectives to his address.

"Bishop O'Brien was booked on one count of 'leaving the scene of a fatal collision,' a class four felony," the Phoenix Police Department said in a statement.

A witness reported that a car similar to the bishop's was the first of two vehicles to hit 43-year-old Jim Reed, who was killed as he crossed a road.

After allegedly being struck by the bishop's car, Reed was then run over by a second car and was pronounced dead in a nearby hospital shortly afterwards, police said. ");document.write("

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Investigators traced the tan-coloured Buick sedan that witnesses said had first hit Reed to the Roman Catholic Diocese in Phoenix and later found the battered car at the bishop's residence.

The front end of the vehicle was damaged and the windscreen was shattered on the passenger's side of the car.

The bishop acknowledged in an interview he had been driving the car in the area of the accident while on his way home from giving a mass, police said.

The senior cleric was arrested and taken to a local jail where he became ill and was transferred to a nearby hospital. He was booked after being released by medical authorities.

"Arizona law requires everyone to stop and render aid when involved in a collision such as this," said Police Chief Harold Hurtt.

"It's a crime if you don't."

The hit-and-run arrest is the second scandal in which the bishop has been implicated in the past two weeks.

In an unprecedented agreement that protected him from criminal charges, O'Brien admitted in documents made public on June 2 that he allowed priests accused of child molestation to have continued contact with minors.

The bishop has headed the 500,000-strong Catholic Diocese of Phoenix since 1981.